This invention relates to a heating apparatus such as microwave ovens wherein one of a plurality of cooking menus is selected and food contained in a cooking chamber is heated by a magnetron or an electric heater in accordance with the selected cooking menu, thereby executing an automatic cooking.
The prior art has provided, for example, a microwave oven in which the heating operation is automatically executed in accordance with one of a plurality of predetermined cooking menus selected by operation of a key. More specifically, a microcomputer incorporating a memory previously storing data of cooking menus and data of pieces of cooking information corresponding to the respective cooking menus and including a heating time period, heating output level, heating temperature and/or the like. All of the cooking menus are displayed on a display simultaneously in a preselected order. Furthermore, a selection button switch and a start button switch are mounted in an operation panel. The selection button switch is operated so that each one of the cooking menus displayed on the display is specified sequentially from the top one. When the start button switch is operated in the condition that one of the cooking menus has been specified, the microcomputer inputs from the memory the cooking information corresponding to the specified cooking menu. The microcomputer then controls the heating output of a magnetron or an electric heater for the oven cooking in accordance with the input cooking information. Accordingly, the cooking can be executed in accordance with a desirable cooking menu just when it is selected from a plurality of cooking menus displayed on the display.
However, the order in which all of the cooking menus are simultaneously displayed on the display is previously determined. Accordingly, when a cooking menu having a high frequency of execution is given a lower order on the display, the selection button switch needs to be operated at a plurality of number of times every time that cooking menu is selected, resulting in a disadvantage that operating the selection button switch is troublesome.
In order to overcome the above-described disadvantage, it has been considered that the cooking menus are displayed in the order of an estimated frequency of execution. Generally, however, the frequency of execution of each cooking menu differs from home to home.